Editorial

April 2nd, 2009

Censorship

Being a weekly newspaper, and having been bitten by the Censorship Bug on several occasions, perhaps we will be forgiven for some snarling and bristling that tends to be our natural reaction when we see someone trying to supress free speech. Freedom of Speech is protected under the First Amendment. They probably teach that at California State University, San Marcos. I’m sure they teach it. But do they practice it?

The evidence would suggest they neither practice it nor enforce their own policies on campus.

We’ve carried a story for two successive weeks about alleged censorship and an attempt to block freedom of speech on campus, both of which deal with Cal State San Marcos. One involves a rookie editor at the campus newspaper, The Pride, Jackie Carbajal by name, who refused to accept an ad from a group which sought to dissuade students from visiting Mexico because of the violence there; subsequent attempts to distribute the information on campus by distributing flyers was allegedly interfered with by, of all people, an assistant professor of Sociology (that’s the study of the culture and mores of a people), Karen Glover. She allegedly charged the group distributing the flyers as being ‘racist’ yet the group opposes only illegal immigrants, not legal residents or immigrants.

One wonders, if these charges are true, is this someone to whom the University should grant tenure? We think she is not a good example for students.

Yet more folks hopped on the bandwagon: Mario Martinez and Alberto Ribas, Assistant Professor from the Dept. of World Languages and Hispanic Literatures, sought to intimidate Mr. Schwilk by complaining both to the Dean of Students, but also to Cox Cable, in an ateempt to block his access to a commercially available Internet and email source. This was clearly an intimidating and retaliatory tactic. (It didn’t work. Cox Cable told the faculty members to go pound sand. This still is a free country.) Fun times learning at CSUSM. Wonder what the hell they’re teaching?

See the story is on page 4.